Lithuanian novelist tells universal tale of children's suffering in war

The renowned Lithuanian writer Alvydas Slepikas brought his debut novel “Mano vardas — Maryte [My name is Maryte]” to Korea. The novel, whose English translation is titled "In the Shadow of Wolves" is one of the most translated Lithuanian books...

Alvydas Slepikas, center, author of novel “Mano vardas — Maryte [My name is Maryte]″ recently translated into Korean, speaks with an audience in Seoul on Dec. 6. [ESTHER CHUNG]

The renowned Lithuanian writer Alvydas Slepikas brought his debut novel “Mano vardas — Maryte [My name is Maryte]” to Korea.

The novel, titled "In the Shadow of Wolves" in its English translation, is one of the most translated Lithuanian books in recent years. It tells the tale of the so-called “wolf children,” or German children from what was eastern Germany who became orphans during WWII and crossed into Lithuania after the war to survive.

“I am not an expert on Korean history, but I knew that Korea also had a terrible war, with the front line pushed all the way down south,” Slepikas told the Korea JoongAng Daily after speaking with an audience in Seoul on Dec. 6. “There were many casualties of civilians, and many children orphaned.”

While national experiences with war may differ, the atrocities faced by children are often devastatingly similar.

“Children caught in the middle of conflicts have always been victims of war,” said Ricardas Slepavicius, ambassador of Lithuania to Korea, speaking at the book’s publication event organized by the embassies of Lithuania and Germany in Korea at the Goethe-Institut Korea in Seoul.

“It is tragic that we cannot talk about child victims in the past tense,” the envoy added, alluding to the ongoing conflicts around the world, including in Ukraine.

Slepikas’s work is a novel, but it is based on his conversations with former wolf children.

Many of them, like Renate in the story, were given Lithuanian names by families in Lithuania who took them in and tried to hide their identities from the Soviet Army, which persecuted not only the German children but also the Lithuanian families that protected them.

In the course of this history, many Renates became Marytes, and their stories went largely untold, partly because it pained the survivors to speak of their experiences and partly because these were stories of Germans who were victimized, stories that were not always sympathetically received given Nazi behavior in WWII.

“War turns human values upside down, with profound consequences,” Georg Schmidt, ambassador of Germany to Korea, told the audience at the event. “Here was a situation in 1945, after all, that happened in the war unleashed on behalf of Nazi Germany against all our neighbors, not just Lithuania — Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia — most terrible atrocities.

“And then you have the story of people who were seen as fascist children who helped [Nazi Germany],” Schmidt said, adding that these stories have a message for all places with cross-border tensions, including South Korea.

First published in 2012, “Mano vardas — Maryte" has been translated into Belarusian, Dutch, Estonian, German, Latvian, Polish and more. The book was translated into Korean by Seo Jin-seok and published by Tin Drum Publishing Ltd. in November.

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]